University Archives and Special Collections houses over 1,000 collections which include Illinois Institute of Technology records and those of its predecessor schools, the Armour Institute of Technology and Lewis Institute. These collections include materials related to the New Bauhaus and Institute of Design, the development of IIT’s Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed campus, and the surrounding Bronzeville neighborhood.

Explore the collection through:

  • Our finding aid portal, where you can search and browse our archival collections

  • Our digital collections portal for discovering digitized archival material

  • Research guides to our prominent collecting areas 

  • Digital exhibits and collections that present stories from Illinois Tech’s history through archival and Special Collections materials:

World's Columbian Exposition of 1893

World's Columbian Exposition of 1893

The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 site was created to provide world-wide access to thousands of illustrations and full-text images of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 for purposes of teaching and research.

Building History

Building History

Building History is a dynamic map showing Illinois Tech's Mies Campus as it is and as it once was, exploring the ways that the campus and the Bronzeville neighborhood around it have changed (and changed each other) since the Armour Institute of Technology opened its doors in 1893.

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Engineer and Alumnus Digital Collection

A full-text searchable collection of volumes 1-11 (1935-1945) of Armour/Illinois Tech Engineer and Alumnus, an alumni publication of the Armour Institute and Illinois Tech, hosted by archive.org. 

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Lewis Annual Digital Collection

The Lewis Annual collection includes yearbooks from the Lewis Institute from 1906-1940. The yearbooks document the academic and social life of the school. They include photographs and descriptions of faculty, students, clubs, societies, and athletics, as well as students' illustrations and literary contributions. The Lewis Institute was a technical and professional college that served the greater Chicago area from 1896 to 1940 before merging with Armour Institute of Technology to form Illinois Tech.

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Tech News Collection

A digitized, searchable collection of IIT's student newspapers, including the current campus newspaper TechNews and its predecessors Technology News, Armour News, and Armour Tech News. 

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Voices of the Holocaust

A digitized collection of Dr. David P. Boder's interviews with Holocaust survivors from 1946, including audio recordings, searchable transcripts, and reference maps of camps and ghettos. Boder was a psychology professor at IIT from 1927 to 1952, and in 1946 he travelled to Europe to research trauma in refugee populations. His interviews are now recognized as the earliest known non-governmental oral histories of the Holocaust.